“THAT WORLD, AND THE RESURRECTION”
AM It is not in mind to go into the detail of these verses in Luke 20, although we must be free as we are led in this occasion, but what is in mind is verse 35, and particularly the words, “that world, and the resurrection”. Scripture refers to three worlds in relation to the earth. Peter tells us of the old world (2 Pet 3: 6), which was destroyed by flood, and the writer of the Hebrews refers to the world “to come, of which we speak”, Heb 2: 5. Between those two worlds we have what Paul describes in Galatians as “the present evil world”, (Gal 1: 4); the Lord Jesus “gave himself for our sins, so that he might deliver us out of the present evil world”. But there is another world and that is my message for this weekend. There is another world and there is a blessed Man who is the centre of it and who fills it with Himself.
In the passage in Ephesians, the Lord Jesus came into this world, and He suffered and died. He went to the lowest parts of the earth, He went where no mere man could ever go, but He is now “ascended up above all heavens, that he might fill all things”. There is a world, a universe that He fills, and He fills it with Himself.
In Revelation 21, we see the eternal scene, everything secured for God. “The holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”; and then a loud voice out of the heavens says, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them” - that is the other world in finality. That world exists and we can touch it, and I hope that in this weekend we will have the experience of touching that world in our spirits. I wondered if in this reading we could concentrate on how there is a world that is filled with our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us concentrate our minds on Him. That might lead us to consider how it can be that there are those who are accounted worthy, and those who have part in that world and also how we are preserved now in relation to that world; but for this reading let us just concentrate on the Lord.
KDD That is a good exercise because everything around us is occupied with another man, but the world that we are concerned about - the world that we are looking forward to - is filled with the Lord Jesus Himself. There is no other object for the believer.
AM And the Lord Himself is maintaining everything; He upholds “all things by the word of his power”, and is now exalted in another scene and it is a scene in which we are to find our part. We will eternally, but we are to find our interests there.
KDD The world that people are generally occupied with is coming to an end but the world that you are speaking about grows brighter and brighter as the day draws nigh.
AM Yes, it does. It grows brighter in the hearts of the saints. We can see that; we speak to the brethren, we have occasions such as this, and our local meetings, and so on, and we see that something of that world that is set before us is meaning more to us than it did a little while ago. It should do, and may that be increased until the Lord comes!
DMW Why do persons deny the resurrection as we have here?
AM People cannot accept the thought with the natural mind of what is not bounded by death. The natural mind cannot go beyond death. They also cannot accept the fact that there is One who is there that they are going to have to meet! That was not perhaps what you had in mind but help us.
DMW What you are saying is most helpful. This world will not have another Man.
AM No, and the world will not have anything of God. It says as to the Holy Spirit, “whom the world cannot receive”, John 14: 17. It “cannot” receive it. The Lord Jesus is a Man of another order; and it is not just that He did not fit in, but it was not possible for Him to fit in.
PWH Is it in your mind then that occupation with that world helps us to take on the characteristics of Christ?
AM Yes, He fills that world. As we are occupied with Him as He is, we will come out like Him as He was. It is no good trying to imitate the Lord in His life down here because that would be mere human effort; it would be making something of me if I could imitate Him! But we are to be formed after Him, and that is brought about by occupation with Him as the centre of another world outside of this scene altogether.
TRC Has it not been said that in God’s ways He first created a world and put man in it; but in His purpose, He has a Man and that Man is to fill another world that you are drawing attention to?
AM Yes, the contrast is very clear. There was a world in the beginning of Genesis; first light came into it, and then there were waters gathered together in one place, and then vegetation appeared. Well that is good, but what kind of a world is that? And then later there were the birds, the fishes, the animals, and that was fine, but that is not intelligent creation. Then there was man, the great thought that God had in mind; all His thoughts centred in man, and He created a sphere in which man could live and prove His goodness. But when you come to a spiritual realm what would there be without Christ? There would be nothing. He makes the world by His being there!
JD Paul laboured at Corinth to emphasise the truth of resurrection; the best the Greek philosophers could offer was to deny resurrection. But in Matthew the Lord says they greatly erred “not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God”, chap 22: 29. Say some more on the knowledge of the Scriptures and the power of God to apprehend what is in the realm of resurrection.
AM If there is to be progress with us from the moment of our conversion, it is essential that we take in the Scriptures; we are to read them. The Scriptures are the word of God. You may say we are pushed for time, and we know that. Some of us used to go to work and the mornings were a rush. You might have only a few minutes in the morning to drink a cup of coffee and leave for work. Well how long did it take you to drink a cup of coffee? You can read while you are doing it. Read something, something from the Scriptures! And before you do so, turn to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to speak to you while you are reading, and you will get something. I find that is a help, whether you have time on your hands or not. Ask the Lord and the Holy Spirit to speak to you while you are reading, and you will get to know the Scriptures in a different light. The Old Testament is not just a history book. The Scriptures are full of life. But then the power of God is available and that power works in us, “the surpassing greatness of his power towards us …in which he wrought in the Christ in raising him from among the dead”, Eph 1: 19-20. You see the power of God in its extremity at that point, but that same power is available to us in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Is that not wonderful!
TRV So Peter could say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”, John 6: 68.
AM Yes, that is after general departure. It does not say where those going away went. What was their objective? Was it this world or that world? Peter had special light from God, and he says there is One who is the Man of God’s choice, the anointed of God; then He is the Man for me!
KNP Are those that are counted worthy those that have received Him, and have a right to be children of God, John 1: 12?
AM Yes that is right. It seems unusual that the saints are referred to as counted worthy. If you search the Scriptures for the word ‘worthy’ you will find that the majority of instances of the word refer to being worthy of death, and that is what we are! By nature, that is what we are. What wonderful grace that God could take account of believers, as those who are worthy of something else, something outside this scene of death.
DMW Therefore is resurrection not only the power of God but also the pleasure of God?
AM Yes indeed. The glory of the Father was involved in that and that involves His love and all His attributes, but think of the pleasure of God in raising Christ. It will be the pleasure of God that we are raised! How can it be for the pleasure of God that we should be raised? It is because the believer has a work in his soul that is entirely in keeping with Christ and is for the pleasure of God, and God will claim it for Himself.
DJK I wondered if the incoming of the Lord Jesus in Luke would link on with your thought of the approval of the One who has another world for God? When the heavenly hosts were stirred, it says, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”, chap 2: 14. Previous to that it says, “for to-day a Saviour has been born”, v 11. Would that link on, the heavenly hosts seeing a Man that was going to come in in another world for God? How would that link on with our approval?
AM Do you think that the angelic hosts were communicating to us what was occupying heaven at that time? That was a most extraordinary event, a most stupendous matter, that a divine Person should actually come into manhood. No wonder heaven was rejoicing that God was acting in such a way! And as believers here desiring to please the Lord and follow Christ, we should see that our thoughts should be in keeping with divine thoughts, with the Father’s thoughts.
DJK I was thinking about this when you spoke about a world filled with the Lord Jesus Christ and the effect of that upon us. The heavenly host had observed the created world already, but you wonder if they thought of something greater that was to come, and when the Lord Jesus came in, they saw that.
AM Mr Darby wrote about the praises of the heavenly host,
More just, those acclamations,
Than when the heavenly band
Chanted earth’s deep foundations,
Just laid by God’s right hand.
(Spiritual Songs - The Man of Sorrows)
It says, “the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38: 7), when the earth was founded. Mr Darby says that the incoming of Jesus gave rise to ‘more just’ acclamations.
OWK Would you say more about the foundational side of this? Paul brings it out in Corinth, along the lines our brother mentioned in regard to believing in the resurrection and those who would deny it. Would you say something as to the foundation of what this would be for us?
AM Resurrection itself is a foundation. It is new ground on which God works. The Lord had His disciples - the apostles particularly, but there were other disciples who were with Him - and He had joy with them, but they were in flesh and blood conditions. All that they were was subject to failure, to breakdown. Eventually they would all die, but in resurrection God has established a new order of things altogether, established in Christ. It is the same Jesus that they knew, and He went to great lengths to demonstrate that at the end of Luke. He was the same blessed One, but His was another order of Man and He was in another condition altogether. He was in what we might call a spiritual condition. In resurrection, God has established an order of manhood in which we can have part. We could never be united to Christ in flesh and blood conditions, but in resurrection there is another order, another condition in which we can have part. Does that help?
OWK It is really interesting to see how the foundation of the believer in Christ depends upon Him rising from the dead. He is associated with that world and no longer in flesh and blood. So many of the disciples would have seen Him having risen. They had watched Him die and they were afraid, but then once they had seen Him risen, they were in complete confidence; they had complete faith. They were able to follow Him while left in this scene regardless of all that was to happen to their bodies; their complete devotion was seen after that.
AM Everything was settled for them after that. We read of Peter and his adjustment and so on, but everything was settled in Christ risen. Now in Christ ascended everything has not only been settled but there is power for testimony to go out. Testimony goes out about an exalted and glorified Christ; that is what the testimony is. Resurrection is the basis for all that.
RBC Paul could say that if Christ is not raised then vain is the preaching, 1 Cor 15: 17. The basis of it all is the resurrection and ascension of Christ.
AM Yes. In resurrection we see the Lord Jesus as the object of the Father’s pleasure having accomplished the whole work. The whole moral question has been settled and we have our confidence in that blessed One risen, and as ascended He is at God’s right hand for God’s eternal pleasure.
PBK So is it right to say that He had to come into this world in order to deliver us out of this world? So we are no longer citizens, but we are foreigners and sojourners; we are citizens of another world.
AM He had to come in. He took up everything that lay upon man in this world - the whole question of sin and all the weaknesses and everything that attaches to man in the flesh: He bore it all! Think of that, one blessed Man, who in the greatness of who He is was able in perfect manhood to take on every burden and condition that lay upon man. He could take it all on Himself and thus the whole matter could be dealt with. It would not have been morally possible for God to have acted from heaven to absolve man of his responsibilities or of his condition in any other way; He had to come into manhood’s condition to take it all on. And as such He is there as the One who sympathises with us. He knows our weaknesses. What a blessed thing that is to know that there is One who understands us better than even the closest links of nature.
SWD He says in Revelation, “Behold, I make all things new”. The scripture speaks of how this body of mortality must put on a body of immortality (1 Cor 15: 53), that which is suitable for another world.
AM These are essential matters, are they not? It “must needs … put on immortality”, the apostle says. Just as Jesus must come into manhood, so He must die, and so He must be raised and glorified! The final condition of change for us is an essential matter, and it renders us perfect, even as to our bodies for that world.
JD In Revelation, it says, ”Blessed … is he who has part in the first resurrection” (chap 20: 6), and I was thinking of the current bearing of resurrection as Paul tells us in Colossians, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above”, chap 3: 1. Would you enlarge on that?
AM The first resurrection is not simply the first as a matter of time; it is the character of that resurrection. So, “the first-fruits, Christ; and then those that are the Christ’s at his coming” (1 Cor 15: 23): that is the first resurrection. Even after the rapture, there will be those who will be martyred on account of their testimony, and because they pass through death, the character of the first resurrection is theirs, Rev 11: 11. But then the word in Colossians, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ” is something that I lay hold of now in faith. Faith is an essential thing in Christianity; absolutely essential. So first of all I know my sins forgiven - that is through faith; then I become aware of my sinful state, what I am as a man, sinful flesh. And then I see that Christ has died, and I associate myself with Him there in faith, that what I am has gone in the death of Christ. But then He has been raised, and faith would lay hold of that as well; so there is another order of life, and I am to be held in relation to Him according to that.
TRC You said at the outset that you wanted us in this reading to be occupied with Christ. Help us in that. The Lord Jesus has a right to be the centre of that world, but He has a moral right to be the centre of that world too.
AM Well, that was what is in mind in Ephesians, “He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens”. We are speaking about the Lord Jesus, a divine Person, so we must be careful, language is limited, but He has demonstrated His moral worth, His moral qualification to be the centre of God’s world because He has taken up everything for God in perfect submission to the will of His God and Father. He has demonstrated everything that God ever looked for and He has proved His moral worth in doing that in a way that honours God. It might be too common to say (J B Stoney vol 2 p302) that God was obliged on that account if for no other reason, to establish Him as a centre of another world.
TRC I think that is fine. The Lord has a right in that sense, He that has ascended, He did it Himself, but then the other side is that He was raised by the glory of the Father (Rom 6: 4), so that the Father’s delight is in that One. I was thinking of the glory of the Father entering into the resurrection of Christ; it was in view to place Him in the centre of this world that you are speaking of.
AM Yes, it was. You can hardly speak of that world without the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
MTH You were speaking of language and is that the power of the word “wherefore” in Philippians 2, “Wherefore also God highly exalted him”, v 9. God was obliged, speaking carefully and reverently, to highly exalt Him!
AM It was for that reason. He went down, “becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. For that reason, God has highly exalted Him.
CJMcK Peter also speaks of the One “whom heaven indeed must receive”, Acts 3: 21. Is it also helpful to see that the place that the Lord Jesus was afforded here as rejected determines our position here, and the place that He has been given there determines our position there?
AM Do you not think that the Ethiopian eunuch found that? “He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb is dumb in presence of him that shears him, thus he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment has been taken away, and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth”, Acts 8: 32-33. His life could not be prolonged here with sinful men; it was impossible. What a glorious thing what Peter says is, “whom heaven indeed must receive”.
AML The reference was made to “seeking the things above”: would that lead us to the gospels? I was thinking of John 21, all the things that Jesus did if they were written one by one “not even the world itself would contain the books written”, v 25. The world would be filled with all these actions and words of Jesus Himself.
AM That is an interesting reference. We may misquote that scripture and say the world could not hold the books written, but it actually says, “not even the world itself would contain”! This world will not contain the testimony of Jesus; it cannot, and it will not. But heaven “must receive” Him. Think of all those records being stored in heaven. Not one word of His fell to the ground.
DCD I was looking over John 17, and there are a few references there as to the will of the Lord; it says in verse 16, “They are not of the world, as I am not of the world”. Later on it says, “I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory”, v 24. I was wondering if it would be right to say that the Lord had that other world that you are speaking of in mind there? To behold His glory is really making Him the centre.
AM And in that wonderful prayer the Lord says, “I come to thee”, v 11. Think of what that meant to the Father that there would be One who would be the centre, not just personally, but the centre of everything that was for God’s pleasure. Down here the world is going on to its destruction and yet there is a world where Jesus is. In John 17 this world is against the Father, but there is One who is entirely in accord with the Father. The Father has ensured that He is the centre of another world.
LJG Hebrews 1 would link with your thought. I was thinking as to what is said there: “God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (v 1, 2), and so on, and all that is filled out there. I was thinking as to the purposes of God in that way and to what we have been brought into in this time period, this dispensation of faith. It is the Son, but it is God having spoken, God Himself, the deity of Christ in that way.
AM Yes indeed, that passage is a remarkable one and there is great scope in one verse, “who being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”, that is what He is, “upholding all things by the word of his power”, v 3. Think of the greatness of the Creator! It goes on, “having made by himself the purification of sins”; that is what took place in this world down here, the great work that He accomplished, “set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”: think of where it led to. But it involves the greatness of such a One as He that it should be done.
LJG I looked earlier as to God’s longings for what is brought in there, as to resurrection. I was thinking as to it being for those who die in Christ, although naturally dead, if they have fallen asleep, it is in view of being raised. Our brother mentioned the power that comes in, but also the worthiness of those that have fallen asleep being raised up. I was thinking of the fulness of the resurrection. It is all under God’s control.
AM That is a beautiful touch, a very comforting touch for believers, falling asleep! It said that of Stephen, “And having said this, he fell asleep”, Acts 7: 60. It is the gentle grace of the Lord Jesus coming into a scene of weakness, and it is in view of a new power centred in another Man.
KDD As to these features of the Lord Jesus that we have been speaking about in connection with another world, do you think when He says, “On this account the Father loves me”, John 10: 17, it is because it is displayed in such an attractive way?
AM He was always conscious that He was the object of the Father’s love. There was what was absolute, “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”, John 17: 24. Before God had begun even in creation love was there. But think of the affections of the Father being drawn out in One who was prepared to lay down His life. He says in that gospel, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again”, chap 10: 18. What mortal person could say that? And He immediately adds, “I have received this commandment of my Father”. Subjection in manhood seen in perfection there!
JD You referred to the three worlds, the old world destroyed by the flood, the present evil world, and the world to come of which we speak. These are three things, and then in Revelation “I saw a new heaven and a new earth” wherein dwells righteousness. I think it is the word ‘aeon’ that refers to the age or the character of things. Would you connect the world to come of which we speak with the millennium?
AM I think that is what is refers to, a thousand years, and being a thousand years it will come to an end, but there is another world that will not come to an end.
JD How would you explain what we have in Revelation, the new heavens and a new earth: is that an actual place? Then Peter gives its moral character, “wherein dwells righteousness”, 2 Pet 3: 13.
AM I think the new heavens and new earth refer to what is eternal. We are not told everything, there is a certain mystery, but the present creation is going to make way for the earth that He had in mind and the heavens that He had in mind. Throughout Scripture we find that it is God’s thought that heaven and earth should be connected. Take Hosea for example, “in that day …I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the new wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jizreel” (chap 2: 21); heaven and earth are in connection. There should not be the dislocation that there is between heaven and earth - eternally there will not be, but at the moment that other world has been established and our hearts can be engaged with the One in whom it has been established.
VMK We have been speaking as to the new world, and I was just wondering about the character of it. We have been speaking about life and obviously in man’s world life is a completely different thing. I was just wondering if the character would be life eternal.
AM Yes, when we are together, and our hearts are set on our Lord Jesus and the sphere in which He is, we touch eternal life. That is really the experience of eternal life. Our relationships in Him are eternal; all that we have as centred in Him will go through into eternity. I think eternal life is something we can enjoy here as touching that world where He is.
VMK Yes, that helps. Quite often we speak as to eternal, “this mortal must needs put on immortality”, but life eternal is something that we can enjoy now.
AM “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”, John 3: 16. That is for every believer, but to enjoy eternal life in a scene where we are living, in the midst of this present evil world but apart from it, is a great blessing for the believer.
DMW So in the millennium it is not a perfect state. But the devil will be bound, and death will be dispossessed; so eternal life will be manifested in the millennium.
AM Yes exactly, that character of life. Although as you say it will not be perfect, and there will be decline, and the end of it will be very sad; but that character of life will be there, and Christ will maintain man in that character of life for one thousand years. That is a great triumph!
DMW During the period of faith which we are in, death is active, but the contrast to that is found in believers who touch eternal life in a heavenly way, and the truth of the Person whom God has made Head over all things now “to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”, Eph 1: 22, 23. So not only do we escape judgment but we have a new existence.
AM That is one reason we should be occupied with the Lord now because it gives us the experience of what that new existence is. If I was just relieved of my sins, where would I be? I would need something else. As a sinful man I was occupied with this world and the things that are in it. If you take my sins away and my fleshly desires, what have I got? I have nothing in this world; I need to have another world.
DMW So therefore resurrection requires a new Head and new beginnings. It is not natural genealogy as the Sadducees tried to lay out; our genealogy begins from death.
AM Yes. And Mary of Magdala got that! At the tomb of Jesus she had nothing in the world; not even an angel could affect her. A godly Jew would have been prostrated before an angel, but there was this woman in the character of a widow who had no means of support in this world at all and an angel appeared, but she turned from him. It was not the Lord!
ASP I wondered if you could help as to the thought of new creation in that world. How does that link?
AM Well, new creation is an extensive matter because in that world everything is new creation. What does new creation mean? New creation is in every believer; “So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”, 2 Cor 5: 17. If you turn to the Lord Jesus and you have accepted Him as your Saviour and Lord, received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the fact is that God has worked in your soul. That work is what S?cripture refers to as new creation, and it is a marvellous thing because it is on account of that work that when you meet another believer you immediately are drawn to them; you have a link. The whole of that world is new creation, and it is what speaks of Christ. New creation is really Christ formed in the saints.
ASP Yes, and it is really in the purpose of God from before time was. So new creation is really God’s purpose.
AM Yes, it is. So in Ephesians 1 it was in God’s purpose “that we should be holy and blameless before him in love” (v 4); that is in new creation. It is a blessed matter.
WKC You mentioned receiving things in faith earlier. To what degree do you think the second malefactor understood something of what we are talking about? The one that said to the Lord Jesus, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”, Luke 23: 42.
AM I do not know that he could have understood much, but one thing I can say is that he had faith in the Person! And that is the crucial thing, that we have faith in the Person of Christ. He had an understanding that the Lord Jesus would have a kingdom; there was a kingdom of which Christ was King. The sign on the cross said, “This is the King of the Jews", Luke 23: 38. I think it would have been quite clear to that malefactor that the Jews who were around the cross did not represent the kingdom of which Christ was the King. I think he must have understood that there must be some other kingdom.
WKC I was thinking how he was focussed on the Person. It is what you said at the beginning; it is a wonderful thing to have the Lord Jesus as the primary focus in our lives.
JD I was just thinking that, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”, John 1: 4. We often relate that to the gospel, the initial blessing that comes to man by faith in Christ; and then the Lord says, “I am the resurrection and the life”, John 11: 25. Then there is the impartation that we have life through faith in Christ. Would you connect eternal life with what it says about Him, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”?
AM There was what was distinct with the Lord. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”; what was seen in the Lord Jesus here brought to light what was in man. For many it brought out what was evil. There was a certain perfection of life in the Lord Jesus that some were attracted to; some received Him. He becomes the life of those who receive Him. There is a certain distinctiveness about “in him was life”. I think He becomes our life.
DMW That is a lovely contemplation, and leads us to that Person, and what was intrinsic in Him appeared in this world; he that follows Him “shall have the light of life”, John 8: 12.
PWH It involves the manifestation of that life, that brought forward the light; the manifestation of His life brought forth the light because men were in utter darkness before that.
AM Yes, so He could say of Himself, “I am the light of the world; he that follows me”, John 8: 12. It is following the One who is the light by which we are kept and preserved.
DMW I might say that what was always in Him appeared and “the darkness apprehended it not”, John 1: 5. It was not even moved by it. Eternal life is connected with His incarnation would you think: “which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us”, 1 John 1: 2?
AM I am sure that is right, that life which was with the Father in John’s first epistle. And the apostles could take account of that. There was such a thing as the apostle’s fellowship. Think of the favour that the apostles had; they could speak to each other about things the Lord Jesus had said and done when He was with them, but the apostle John wrote that “ye also may have fellowship with us”, 1 John 1: 3. There is one fellowship, but there was that which was special to the apostles. And so they could go out with authority; they could go out as representatives of the Lord. They had seen Him, and they had heard Him: they knew Him!
DMW Does that support what our brother was getting at earlier? In other words there were witnesses to the resurrection; we are not. “Blessed they who have not seen and have believed” (John 20: 29), and that is the day that we are in.
AM Yes, and in the early Acts the gospel went out on the basis of witness: “And we are witnesses of these things”, Acts 5: 32. There are several references in the Acts to the fact that they were actually witnesses. The enemy was intent on destroying that witness, but he failed. It was not very long before he took James, and he was put to death, and next he took Peter, but Peter was delivered from his hand, Acts 12. There were three events in the life of Jesus that were witnessed by Peter, James and John. They witnessed His power over death, they witnessed His glory, the glory He received from the Father, and they witnessed His sufferings. The enemy was intent on destroying this witness, and there were those three witnesses. One was taken and God preserved two. The testimony had to go on and there was an adequate witness to a glorious Man who received honour and glory from the Father and is now exalted!
MB Where you have referred to in 1 John about the fellowship John goes on to say that he was writing to us that our “joy may be full”, chap 1: 4. I was just wondering if that links with where you read in Ephesians that He might fill all things, that would include the hearts and minds of believers, would it not?
AM “That he might fill all things”. Well, does He actually fill my heart? He should do; He has a right to: it is right that He should! He should fill our hearts and our minds; we should be occupied with Him. The trend of our minds should always be to revert to Him where He is. You have to do your work; you have to do other things. The dear brethren in this place are very busy this weekend, and there are things they must attend to, but the trend of our minds must always revert to Him, glorious Man, where He is!
AML Would the disciples’ perseverance in the beginning of Acts lead them to the greatness of Christ? I was thinking of “the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers (chap 2: 42); they all lead to Christ and the greatness of the assembly.
AM Yes. He is the centre of it all! The assembly calendar is all centred in Him. Think of the Lord’s day, we begin by remembering Him, and in the final occasion of the day we are proclaiming His Name. Everything is centred in Christ for God.
I just thought in Revelation 21 that we get this wonderful scene; there is a world that is for the pleasure of God. Verse 4 states, “death shall not exist any more, nor grief, nor cry, nor distress”. A dear brother once said that we have there the history of the world in four words, ‘death, grief, cry, distress’, but there is another world, “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them”. No grief there, no cry, no distress, just joy, blessing! That is what is before us, dear brethren! It will not be long; that is our prospect, as becoming free of these bodies to go and have our part in that blessed world where God dwells.
KDD It says, “and God himself”. I just have an impression of the reality that the One who desired all this from the very beginning now takes up that place where “God himself shall be with them”.
AM Think of all that that involves. God was made known in various degrees throughout the Old Testament; His Creator power, the Almighty God, the fact that He would come into relationship as Jehovah; now He is known to us through Christ as Father -
Our God whom we have known,
Well known in Jesus’ love,
Rests in the blessing of His own
Before Himself above. (Hymn 72)
God Himself!
At three-day meetings in Calgary AB
27th June 2025
List of initials:-
M Brown, Bo’ness; T R Campbell, Glasgow; W K Clark, Kirkcaldy; R B Clark,
Aberdeen ID; J Desai, Los Angeles; D C Drever, Calgary; K D Drever, Calgary;
S W Drever, Calgary; L J Gray, Calgary; M T Holland, Calgary; P W Howie, Calgary; D J Klassen, Aberdeen ID; O W Klassen, Aberdeen ID; V M Klassen, Aberdeen ID;
A M Lidbeck, Aberdeen ID; C J McKay, Glasgow; A Martin, Buckhurst Hill;
A S Pittman, Grangemouth; K N Pye, New York; T R Vanderhoek, Aberdeen ID;
D M Welch, Denton